Tony Dungy is professional coaching royalty. descending from the legendary Paul Brown through the illustrious line of Brown, Shula, and Noll. Dungy adds to that legend.

He rose to the top of a ruthless and highly competitive meritocracy. He stayed there a very long time. It would be a nice change to have politician who was actually good at something, let alone good at being an executive. What political party wouldn't want his character and dignity? Oh, never mind.

A decade or so ago I told my rather slow young boss that there were a lot of good baseball movies but very few football movies. In the last few years that has changed. But there are still differences.

Baseball movies are almost always about presonal transformation. Some are blatantly supernatural. But they almost always focus on an individual player. The baseball manager is a supporting actor. The star typically plays an over the hill pitcher or hitter.

Football movies are built around an charismatic coach. The above-the-title star is in management. He transforms the losing squad into winners.

The charismatic football coach is one of the few managers still aceptable in a Hollywood script. Ghetto school teacher scripts still get filmed, but in few other genres are leaders condidered appropriate for praise.

I caught Executibe Suite on Turner Classic Movies the other night. This was 1951 major studio release about the death of a corporation CEO and the subsequent power struggle to fill his seat. The drammatic climax comes when William Holden makes a boardroom speech extolling manufacturing quality and attacking the short sightedness of the CFO. Frederick March as the wrong headed accounting type reminded me strongly of Roger Smith of GM (Michael Moore's subject).

This kind of movie theme could hardly be more relevant today but such movies can no longer be made. We nowadays can only film a leadership drama around the person of a football coach.

Always liked Dungy although he probably should have at least 1 more Super Bowl. Found it strange though that he is a big spokesman for fathers and family etc since his son commited suicide. He only went 1 for 2 with his sons so why would I listen to him about raising my kids.

Akin to Michael Irvin doing a say No to Drugs commercial or Travis Henry for family planning. John Rocker for New York board of tourism

Akin to Michael Irvin doing a say No to Drugs commercial or Travis Henry for family planning.

I had no idea who Travis Henry was, so I looked him up in the Wikipedia. He's a pro football player who, according to the Denver Post, had fathered 9 kids with 9 different women by the age of 28. He's 30 now, so perhaps he's had a chance to up the score since then. The Wikipedia also states that his Wonderlic score is 7. That's 74 IQ, isn't it? The wiki on the Wonderlic test says that a score of at least 10 means that the person being tested is literate. Reading on:

"On September 30, 2008, Henry was arrested by the DEA after allegedly being involved in a multi-kilogram cocaine transaction that occurred in Centennial, Colorado[12]. Henry, portrayed by court documents "as the ruthless 'money guy' in a cocaine trafficking ring", faces 10 years to life on federal drug trafficking charges."

Tony Dungee is a classy guy and selected his players on ability and character, not skin color. The Colts are known as the second "whitest" team in the League after the Patriots, and not having a color line for "Blacks only" in positions like LB, etc. They also don't have a size requirement, Bob Sanders being a case in point.

I've ALWAYS like Dungy, I will miss him with the Colts, and wish the man the best.

yeah yeah got it. raising kids is not programming a robot.... but something like .03 percent of kids commit suicide (I made those numbers up) and in Dungy's family it was 50 percent. I'll just take my child rearing advice from either one of my two moms

"Here's to hoping that coach Manning's new assistant is as loyal and obedient as his last...."

Oh, I wasn't aware that Peyton Manning made personnel decisions or called defensive signals. He must have miraculously learned all he knew about 'coaching' while Dungy was underneath him, because his record as a coach sucked before TD took that assistant job.

Dungy really impressed me back in the time of Super Bowl 2007 when every other article in the press was about "the first two African American coaches in Super Bowl". He kept trying to make it about team togetherness and Christianity, regardless of color. But of course in the end he was beaten into submission by the endless same old questions and now always makes sure to acknowledge the "first Black man" part. Here was a guy trying be different and to get past race but our geniuses of the press and PC'ism were not going to allow it. Marvelous.

James Kabala made the best comment so far on this thread: Dungy is temperamentally conservative, even if he mat have voted Democrat for racial reasons (who knows). He strikes me as a serious, modest and disciplined person.

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